Design and Fabrication of Photonic MEMS Waveguide Modulators

We report the design and fabrication process of photonic MEMS actuators for optical attenuators integrated with a silicon photonic wire waveguide. This paper presents design and theoretical analysis of the silicon optical waveguide modulator with an electrostatic micromechanical structure actuated in the evanescent range. We observed a 100-nm MEMS displacement on a 5-um-wide and 50-um-long cantilever at a voltage of 20 pp.